AI Research Scientist

About the role

The AI Research Scientist will contribute to webAI’s development of next-generation AI models and systems. In this role, you will design, train, evaluate, and optimize cutting-edge machine learning models including large language models, multimodal architectures, and on-device inference systems. You will work closely with research leadership, applied AI teams, and platform engineering to advance scientific discovery while ensuring that innovations translate into real-world impact. This is a hands-on research role for someone who loves experimentation, solving complex problems, and building AI that is powerful, efficient, and privacy-preserving.

Responsibilities

• Design, train, and optimize machine learning models including LLMs, multimodal models, transformers, and diffusion architectures
• Conduct research on model efficiency, quantization, compression, and on-device deployment
• Prototype novel model architectures, training methods, and inference strategies for distributed AI
• Develop and evaluate benchmarks, datasets, and experimental frameworks to test model performance
• Collaborate with engineering teams to integrate research findings into production systems
• Analyze experimental results and communicate insights clearly to technical and non-technical stakeholders
• Document research findings, contribute to internal papers, and present technical work across the organization
• Identify emerging technologies and propose research directions aligned with webAI’s strategic priorities

Qualifications

• 4+ years of experience (can be graduate research) in machine learning research, AI model development, or related fields
• Strong expertise in deep learning architectures including transformers, CNNs, RNNs, and diffusion models
• Hands-on experience training and fine-tuning large-scale models
• Proficiency in Python and ML frameworks such as PyTorch, TensorFlow, or JAX
• Experience building datasets, designing experiments, and validating ML model performance
• Deep understanding of optimization techniques including quantization, distillation, pruning, and hardware-aware training
• Strong problem-solving skills and ability to work independently on complex research tasks
• Effective communication skills for presenting research findings to diverse audiences
• Bachelor’s degree in Computer Science, Engineering, Mathematics, or a related field

Preferred Skills

• Master’s or PhD in Machine Learning, Computer Science, AI, or a related field
• Experience with distributed training, edge inference, or on-device ML
• Research experience in generative AI, reinforcement learning, or multimodal learning
• Familiarity with privacy-preserving ML techniques such as federated learning
• Experience contributing to academic publications, patents, or open-source ML projects
• Comfort operating in a fast-paced, high-growth startup environment